COMMENTARY
Epidemiology
Micro-epidemiology of the healthy worker effect?
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Prof. Dr D Heederik
Division Environmental and Occupational Health, IRAS, Utrecht University, PO Box 80178, 3508 TD Utrecht, Netherlands; d.heederik@iras.uu.nl
Commentary on the paper by Bakirci et al (see page 126)
Keywords: healthy worker effect; labour turnover; respiratory health
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Bakirci and colleagues1 describe a high turnover of the workforce in cotton spinning mills and try to analyse if the high turnover is health driven. These observations actually relate to one of the driving forces underlying the so called "healthy worker effect". The healthy worker effect was probably first described by William Ogle in an appendix of the Registrar General’s report on mortality in England and Wales.2 It refers to the observation that the working population is healthier than the general population. Ogle identified two kinds of selection responsible: one working at the time of hire, and the other working at the time of employment. The first selectively attracts or rejects new workers depending on physical demands of the job and health selection, by for instance occupational physicians. The second forces people to leave industry because their health is too much impaired for the job they are in. Several
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Occup. Environ. Med. 2006 63: 126-130.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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